Signing the lease on an apartment tomorrow

[Startastic]

Tomorrow we are going to sign the official lease. so far we have just paid for a credit check and for a holding fee. I am sooo worried since the rent is $1240 AND we have to pay all utilities. Water is one meter per building(8 units) so it's a shared cost. I am hoping that people are conservative with there use!

We will be a 2 income family for a few more months but that will soon change. I currently am living with my mother part time so she can watch my DS while I work. our new place is nearly a 2hour commute each way, depending on traffic and bus connections. It's $180 if I commuted everyday.

my paycheck is now being used to pay off his credit card bills, stuff for the apt, savings, and baby stuff. but mostly for repaying the bills and car. I have estimated our monthly costs and we are close to having nothing extra once I stop working. which is one of the reasons I am working still, I want to make sure that all of the extras are paid for.

I have been searching out money saving tips frequently. I just hope everything works out well. so this is more of a vent

[Kerri]

Yikes, is that an average-price-range rent in your area? I'm sure it can be done, but if you're not used to that many expenses, it will have to be a very careful budget. Give it a couple of months and then do a really specific review of where all the money went. In the meantime, work hard on your food/clothing/entertainment budget because that's usually the first place you can make big cuts.

Good Luck!

Kerri

[mamabear]

[peanutsmom]

That is rough. We lived in SoCal until a year ago and it is such a hard place to make ends meet. $1200 was pretty reasonable rent in our area of L.A. $1500 was more common.

[Startastic]

the rent is actually somewhat on the cheaper side for the area all of the cheaper places were all rented (or in the not so nice area) and we needed something quickly.

We got the keys and had to actually sign the lease prior to the initial inspection. NOT only that but we had to do the walk through ourselves! I was very weary of signing prior to seeing the place. We actually ended up typing up a 2 page list of problems we found. some we can live with other's we can't. I made sure we had them sign the list we typed up so we have proof of the problems.


overall I just hope they won't fight us when it comes to fixing things.

[BlueRoseMama]

Gosh. That sounds harsh. I hope they are kind to you. Good luck!

Val